School Repairs

The repairs have been started on the school. Here is a picture of the front set of classroom buildings with new window and door frames, plaster and security bars so that we can store things in the rooms after we get the doors put on. These were the mandatory repairs to reopen the school. The blackboards were replastered and painted black. The kids can now see what is written on them. The kids started back on Monday with teachers salaries paid up to date, new repairs on the buildings, porridge for breakfast and beans and casava for lunch. The teachers are getting tea in the morning with their porridge which makes them much happier. Can you imagine a teacher in the USA going to school to teach without eating breakfast or having their starbucks?

Boda riding

Those of you that have been keeping up with my blog will remember me writing about the modes of transport here in Uganda. Well, the car that we have been blessed with that was on loan for the past 4 months is now in the shop getting repainted and fixed up for our friends that will be returning next week. We are so excited to have them back It has been too long!
Anyway, we are now back to public transportation which means smoking taxis, crazy Boda(motorcycle) drivers and walking. The walking is good except for when the Boda drivers see how close they can get to you or the taxi's run you off the road. I don't think I ever told you about the Boda's trying to see how close they can get to you. Anyway, they think it is funny to come up behind you and drive as close as they can possibly get (sometimes even hitting you) to you. I haven't quite figured out why they do it but I must confess that sometimes I think about stiff arming them or kicking the bike over as it goes by. WWJD? I struggle with that one:)
I am getting pretty good at riding on the back of the motorcycles with no foot pegs hanging my legs out. There is an art to doing it. If you hang them to far out to the side (mostly to avoiding dragging them or getting your leg burned by the exhaust pipe which I did on Friday and now have a large burn to prove it) you may get them hit by oncoming traffic or smashed between the cars that the Motorcycle is squeezing through. So, this week as I am riding trying to hold on, keeping my legs from dragging or getting burned or hit I was thinking how nice it is to experience the country on the back of a bike. It was really nice until I got cramps in my thighs and we were almost squished between a lory (large truck) and a Toyota Prado (landcruiser) We accelerated at the last minute to squeeze through them.
Never a dull moment!

Bakka Village Crusade

Here is an update on our crusade that we held in the village over the weekend. Sorry no pictures as I took the battery out of the camera to charge it before we left, picked up the camera and forgot the battery. We did get some interesting video though:)

Part of our team arrived in the morning to set up the area for the meeting and the the rest of the team came later on in the afternoon. We started with 3 hours of music then we had the evangelist speak for about 30 minutes, we prayed for the sick watched the 2nd half of the 10 commandments movie with the evangelist narrating the dialogs in Lugandan and then prayed for salvations and other needs.

There were 11 first time dedications which were followed up by the local pastor, 8 instant healings, two demon possessed people manifesting and 1 witch doctor chanting and dancing around. It was quite a night. 4 of the instant healings were of children with malaria which the fever left instantly and no sign of any symptoms after prayer. The others were headaches, stomach aches and one with severe chest pains unable to breath.

The witch doctor was interesting to say the least. He came out during praise and worship with a suit on and animal skins strapped to his body. Had a pipe in his mouth, some kind of animal tail on a stick in one hand and then another stick in the other. He danced around waving the sticks and blowing smoke everywhere. He did this for 2 hours and then decided to give up and go home. Some of the natives were worried and scared and watched to see what we would do. We prayed and laughed under our breath as it was really quite ridiculous to watch. We serve the one true God!

World Orphan Day

Today is World Orphan Day. It is a great time to reflect upon the orphan crisis all around the world. Uganda has 3.1 million orphans and the number is rising. Malaria is the #1 killer of the parents of these orphans and all children under the age of 5 killing more than 300 a day in Uganda alone.
We had one of the children in Bakka village die this past week. We had just seen him a few weeks ago and he was well. He spent several days in the hospital before he finally died. It is a very hard thing for us to see these children die, but for the people here it is their daily reality.

pictures

Kaci and David explaining the birthing kits, Kaci passing out snacks to the village kids and a rainy day at the school.

Well, we have internet at our house again, but it very slow. Still it is a huge blessing not to have to drive 30 minutes or more into town to sit at an internet cafe for 3 hours and only be able to send 2 emails out.
We had the opportunity to meet and great family that is in Uganda for a visit. Their daughter is here on a longer stay and they helped us distribute birthing kits in the village this week. They were great and we really appreciated their presence.
We were able to put together 50 kits with the help of a supporter in the states and distribute them in the village. Thank you Brandi for helping make this happen. I have posted pictures of some of the houses and women that we saw.
I will give you an update on the school project in the next blog. We have received funds for the testing of the children for HIV/AIDS as well as funds for the repairs so we will be able to start on both of those things.

school sponsorship

Click on the pictures to see them enlarged. All of these kids need school sponsorship. Please see the blog below for more information.

Here is the information on the school that we are helping and had previously told you about in one of the blogs. The name of school is Christian Friends School. We are considering renaming it.
We were at the school most of the day on Friday. 6 of us went with one being a new acquaintance here from England. She had been here for awhile and had not seen the real Africa, spending most of her time in and around Kampala. We were there doing the social work of cataloging the children and taking pictures. We were only able to complete through P-2. That was 94 of the 150 children and here are some of the findings.

47 boys and 47 girls
11-AGE 3, 17-AGE 4, 11 AGE-5, 12 AGE-6, 14- AGE 7, 18-AGE 8, 3- AGE 9, 6-AGE 10, 1- AGE 11, 1- AGE 12. We still have about 56 more of the older kids.
45 Double orphans (both parents dead), 18 single orphans (one parent dead), 31 with both parents.
25 children always pay the school fees. ($4.50/term) 2 children pay sometimes, 67 are never able to pay school fees. Monday was the start of the exit testing for the year. It is required to pay about $ .60 per child to get the test. 59 of our children could not pay. We made up the difference, but insisted that they help with the garden and bring in mulch for it and they did. We heard of another school that requires the children to bring in homemade bricks if they cannot pay. There is really no free education in Uganda. These kids are as poor as it gets. We found out that for many of our students, the porridge they get at lunch is many times the only meal they get that day. It has very little nutrition in it, but it does fill them up with carbs. Some of the children walk over 3 miles one way to come to the school.

Staffing
We started putting together a basic budget for the monthly reoccurring costs.
* We want to have 5 qualified teachers at $120.00 per month. Plus 5 teachers aids at $40.00 per month.
* A qualified head master at $240.00 per month.
* A school secretary at $40.00 per month
* 2 cooks/cleaners at $40.00 per month
* A grounds/gardener at $40.00 per month
* Pastor Joseph as our Chaplin and counselor at $60.00 per month
THESE STAFFING REQUIREMENTS TOTAL TO ABOUT $1285.00 PER MONTH
Nutrition
We want to increase the nutrition of the children’s 1 meal so we want to serve them beans and rice 3 times a week and beans and porsho (cornmeal) 2 times a week. This will cost us about $.15 per meal. 150 kids and 15 staff cost about $450.00 per month. We will also build a water purifier for the kids so that they can have a drink of water during the day. I swear they don’t drink any water at all. Dehydration is a major issue in all of Africa. Clean water is hard to come by.
Health Care
We want to insure the children and staff. Our friend Gerry Noble is an owner of a health insurance company called MicroCare that is totally changing the way health care is done. He will be able to create coverage for the school children and staff for about $50.00 per year per child and staffer. That totals to about $690.00 per month.
These 3 things total to about $2425.00 per month. These totals do not include teaching aids, paper, pencils, books, uniforms, and backpacks, wood to cook the lunch with ECT…
Our hope is we will be able to sponsor all of the children at a dollar a day.
If we do, we will able to rock the world for these students and the community.
We have uploaded pictures of a lot of the students. We will finish them all soon. Please consider to commit and sponsor a child.

Start-up costs
At this stage the school doesn’t have one single book. Not for the students and for some of the classes not even the teachers. No library either. The students don’t have proper clothes, shoes, school supplies ECT. We put in our last blog about the school the costs of repairs, desks and so on, but that didn’t have in it the costs for supplies, uniforms, shoes or books. These are costs that we are tallying and will have them posted in the future as well.


SPONSORSHIP

You can choose a child and begin donating $30 dollars a month towards the schooling and care of the child. The money will go towards the things that the school provides. Maintaining uniforms (tee-shirt and shorts for boys and skirts for girls, flip flops), 1 nutritious meal a day and maybe a morning snack, Health care, and a decent education with qualified teachers and teaching tools.

A HOPE AT A BETTER LIFE BECAUSE YOU GOT INVOLVED.


How to sponsor a child.

On the list below there are names children and pictures to connect them with.
Choose a child and respond to us at OCF Uganda through this blog or email us at www.orphanchildrenfund@gmail.com. Tell us the child’s name and age and we will hook you together with those child/children. We will send you reports and as soon as they can speak and write English with the help of staff the child will send you a letter thanking you. We will send pictures and report on a regular basis.

How to make the monthly donation.
You can send a check to 5753 Republic of Texas, Austin TX 78735 designate it for “school sponsorship” with the child’s name , age and number or we can help you set up a monthly debit from your credit card. Please let us know.